Andhra Pradesh: Botcha Satyanarayana sees TDP conspiracy behind attacks on temples

Amaravati: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has been taking all the required measures to promote religious harmony in the state and brought GO MS 6 constituting committees at both district and state-level for safeguarding communal harmony, said ministers Botcha Satyanarayana, Amzat Basha, Mekathoti Sucharitha and Vellampalli Srinivas here on Friday.

They held a meeting here on Friday with the leaders of various religions where steps to be taken to safeguard religious harmony in the state were discussed.

The representatives of religions asserted that politics should not be mixed with religion to whip up passions. They were of the view that no religion promotes violence or hatred against other religions and appealed to the people to maintain peace.

Addressing the media, Botcha Satyanarayana alleged that the opposition parties have been conspiring to create unrest in the state by inciting religious hatred among the people to divert their attention from the government's welfare activities. He said that Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy would treat all religions equally and warned that all those behind vandalism of idols would be punished soon.

"Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu, after losing power is plotting to destabilise the government with evil intentions and is conspiring to defame the government by desecrating temples. They want to create a bad impression among the people by portraying the events of the past as the current happenings and publicising them on social media," he said and reiterated that TDP leaders were planning these incidents just a day before the scheduled government programmes to divert people's attention.

The minister said that there is no place for religious hatred in Andhra Pradesh and to maintain religious harmony, a government order was issued constituting state-level and district level committees headed by the chief secretary at the state level, including officials from various departments and representatives from all religions.

Venugopala Dikshitulu, chief priest of TTD, said that all religions in the state should practise their religious beliefs and respect other religions without causing any disturbance.

Ahmed Sheikh Bin Shabeen of Shamiria Peetam said that the Chief Minister was implementing many welfare schemes in the state respecting all religions, irrespective of their caste, religion, and community. AELC moderator Bishop Elijah said that universal brotherhood is the message that society needs, where no religion must be hated and no one should use religion for creating communal hatred.